Sports Coverage And Its Effect On Women 's Sports

From all corners of the globe, news headlines are becoming much more attentive to the issues surrounding women in sport. Female athletes are gaining more notoriety in the sports’ arena. However, the attention they are receiving, usually pertains to their appearance, rather than their skill. Further, they are continuously being over-sexualized and objectified and for these reasons, there is a need for sweeping change in the representation of female athletes in the media. This paper will discuss the portrayal of female athletes in the media, the coverage that women in sport receive, the current impacts that media has on women in sports, and what measures can be undertaken to curtail the current trend of the media.

Gender classification is a predominant topic within today’s sports and is most broadly understood through the portrayals of sports media. Through overt and covert ways, sports media has continued to promote a masculine representation of sports (Millington & Wilson, 2010; Messener, Duncan, & Jensen, 1993). By understanding the way in which sports media portrays sports, one can recognize how masculinity has dominated the world of sports. With the aid of two unique studies of sports media, this paper will critique the way in which media has effected the gendered depiction of sports.

The premium network for pay-per-view sporting events, Home Box Office (HBO), has been the prime channel for sporting events yet not once have they aired a woman’s match ( van Ingen & Kovacs, 2012). The female sports that do receive the most coverage are the feminine sports and those females that do not adhere to those standards do not receive the same amount of attention (Krane, 2001). Women have found that they tend to receive more attention when they are being sexualized (van Ingen & Kovacs, 2012; Lindner, 2012; Krane et al, 2004). The female athletes were aware that their uniforms were perceived as sexy and thus garnered male attention.

While participation of women in sports has increased, the media representation of women in sports remains problematic. Even the most talented elite female athletes like Michelle Kwan and Monica Seles are portrayed in a sexual fashion, as a way of deemphasizing their athleticism and neutralizing any possible threat they might seem to pose to male viewers. Very few male athletes are portrayed in such an objectified manner; they are portrayed as competitors first and foremost, not as personalities. Also, the media coverage of athletes is disproportionately focused on male athletes. The coverage of female athletes tends to stress individualized female sports where women can be sexualized like tennis and figure skating, versus competitive team sports like basketball and soccer.

Women athletes are often exploited by marketers and advertisers who want to increase their revenues and bottom line sales. Advertisers focus more on the women’s “skin” and sex appeal rather than women’s athletes, leaving the impression that woman are not as talented in the sports as male athletes (Roenigk 1). Many spectators and advertisers do not take female professional sports seriously and think that female athletes play more for fun. Therefore, female athletes do not receive as much attention for their talent. Advertisers exploit women athletes by focusing on their looks and appearances. Advertisers focus on the female athlete’s sex appeal rather than talent (Julius 2). Those who are more talented can be drafted to play professionally where they receive a salary. However, marketers still focus more on male sports. Therefore, increased revenue continues as spectators buy tickets to watch professional male athletes. The female athletes continue to generate revenues from sex appeal and looks over talent. This professional salary in no way compares to the pay received by professional male athletes.

This article talked about the daunting unequal media coverage in sports of male sports teams in comparison to females.They researched the true differentiations of coverage between men and women sports. The actual percentage difference of coverage of male vs female sports discovered in their research truly is unfathomable. Men’s sports receive 96.3% of the airtime, women’s sports 1.6% and gender neutral topics were 2.1%. When you think back about twenty years ago and the coverage of media people tend to think that America is generally trending positively forward, however that is not the case for the coverage of women's athletics. It has actually gone down since then. Although on the scarce occasion that they are feature in the news, more often than not they are conveyed in the stereotypical way: as wives, girlfriends, or mothers. When media is highlighting these aspects instead of their talent, hard work or success it takes away from their image as an athlete and it demonstrating that it is acceptable to do so in society. However if male athlete achieved equal success and he was a father, that

“Women’s Sports Foundation’s GoGirlGo has helped nearly one million inactive girls get active” (Naylor). There are billions of people who watch television. Take ESPN for an example. “ESPN is in 98,516,000 homes nationwide in 2013” (Scott). That number is rising each year, and out of that large number there are most likely several thousands of children who watch ESPN. Out of those thousands of kids there are most likely thousands of young women who watch different sporting events. The number of young women who watch ESPN is significantly small because generally the majority of people who watch women’s sports is women. Also, it makes it hard for them to even find a women’s sport televised because most sport channels are taken by the men’s

Before I conducted this media analysis about women in sports and sport broadcasting, I hypothesized the obvious - that more male sports would be in the media, and that there would be more male sports broadcasters as well. Through my observations I did find that the sports arena and sports broadcasting sphere are male dominated. However, I also found that although there are not many stories about women, there has been a steady progression and magazines like Sports Illustrated are becoming bold enough to highlight women athletes in a magazine that is targeted towards a male audience. Although women still have a long way to go, they are making some headway into the male-dominated sports arena.

In sports there is huge gender inequality in the media with women athletes often only receiving attention for having good looks or the best body, rather than their athletic abilities. Men, however, don’t receive this attention and people only focus on their athletic prowess. This report will review and analyse two examples of how the media portrays different genders in accordance with the following question: “How does the media portray men and women in sport?

When it comes to talking about sports,it is all about the enthusiasm a reporter puts into it. For example you would probably much rather listen to a person who sounds pumped and energetic instead of someone who sounds bored out of their mind. Lets compare these two reporters talking about both a man and woman baseball player hitting a home run “a sports anchor discussed a Giancarlo Stanton hit: ‘‘Wow! Take another look at this one. He just absolutely destroys them! You can see the speed on that swing in real time. And you just stand and admire a shot like that.’’ Later, a sports analyst gushed over Yoenis Céspedes:‘‘Céspedes kept getting better and better, and the home runs kept getting longer and longer and the numbers got bigger and bigger.” Cheryl Cooky put this together and notice how Stanton gets all this glory but Cespedes hardly gets any recognition and the announcer makes the home runs seem boring.

When men engage in sports, it is seen and interpreted as an opportunity for them to exhibit dominance in the masculinity and as an expression of heterosexuality. When women have traditionally engaged in sports, it has caused commentators to question one’s heterosexuality, to question their femininity, and to almost ridicule the idea of women engaging in a traditionally male-dominated activity. This analysis focuses on media representations of men and women in sports, and the differences that exist in the way that these stories are covered. This exploration will feature Canadian-based media coverage as it pertains to women and men engaged in hockey.

With the rise of feminism, gender inequality has been quite the topic in todays time. With the wanting of equal rights and treatment it has been pointed out as per which all places males have the hegemonic overview and women are the oppressed; one of the areas where its unequal in gender is in sport. This paper will examine and break down the issues regarding sex and gender biases within sports in modern day media and how it can be resolved.

From the three network affiliates they studied, they found that 96.3 percent of the coverage was for men’s sports and women only received 1.6 percent (Messner and Cooky 4). When analyzing the coverage of Sports Center, which is arguably the most popular sports show on television, they found that women still only received just 1.4 percent of their coverage (4). This study also found that 100 percent of the Sports Center programs had a lead story that was about men’s sports (4). Even the most renowned and credible sports show, which only shows sports all year long, does not even provide women’s sports with equal attention. Even more shocking than this was that the study also revealed that reporters devoted more coverage to men’s sports that were out of season than they did women’s sports that were actually in season (4). This can be extremely disrespectful to female athletes when their sport is pushed aside and ignored so that a men’s sport that is not even being played can be covered by the media. These women put all their effort into performing their sport at the highest level, but their media attention gets replaced by men who are in their off-season.

For a professional sport broadcast I chose to cover a National Basketball Association (NBA) game of the New Jersey Nets playing in Philadelphia against the Philadelphia 76ers. The game was broadcast on the Yankees Entertainment and Sports (YES) network. This game featured the two teams with the lowest win percentage in their division of the NBA. This broadcast shows that the most popular professional sports still do exemplify the televised sports manhood formula introduced by Michael Messner in his book Taking the Field: Women, Men, and Sports. The main themes Messner gives as his televised sports manhood formula are: white males are the voice of authority, sport is a man's world, men are foregrounded in commercials, women are sexy props

Similarly women are receiving less attention and media coverage than men. When someone puts on the television and turns on a sports game, it is most likely going to be a men’s sport. Even when females get their coverage, the commentators are usually talking about their body rather than their skill. In an article, “Examination of Gender Equality and Female Participation in Sport” by Joshua A. Senne, he talks about how women are referred by their appearance rather than their skill. During a study about the media, the commentators mostly talked about the women’s hair, make-up, and body figure, rather than their ability. This also occurred after the 1996 summer Olympics, where there was a lack of promotion for female athletes and the marketing of women’s sports. These athletes were also only recognized by their physical appearance instead of their ability. The tone of these broadcasters was proved in a study that men 's events were the standard in the society rather than the women’s. They would list the event as “other” rather than saying it is a women’s sport. In the study that was conducted, it states that the gender marketing showed that the woman sports were marked as “other” on an average of 27.5 times, but it 's never happened in the men’s sporting events (Senne). There is still coverage of women 's sports, but it rarely covered. The title IX project made a pie chart about the comparison of men’s and women’s sports media coverage on the show SportsCenter on